Speed of Life

-gregg chadwick, buddha's hand 2004 We spoke of the tsunami in an L.A. pub last night. Over the sound system the piano intro to "Let it Be" stopped our conversation. Tentatively, yet without prompting, we sang together the first line,"When I find myself in times of trouble..." It was a brief moment but it cut through the evening. The conversation veered to John Lennon's murder and then on to the small disasters in all our lives. I looked around the room, a collection of friends celebrating life. Smiles in our eyes as the little kids at our table drew their own inner worlds. A ten year old lost in a book, i-pod buds in his ears filtering out our musical memories as he created his own. Across the room an older couple sipped wine and whispered to each other. It was as if we all were in the dining car on a train, heading for separate destinations, yet for a brief moment brought together. This random collection of faces would never be together again. Someday ...

By the Sea Stretching into the distance the sea swallows a hundred rivers for thousands of miles the spray joins the waves to the sky -Muso Soseki (translation: W.S. Merwin) I'm reading the poems of Muso Soseki today, a Japanese poet born in Ise in 1275, ten years after Dante. Ise is on the coast far to the west of what was then Edo and the sea has a real presence. We tend to sentimentalize the ocean now, travel is easier and at times it seems that we have harnessed the massive power of the tides, currents and waves. A sense of ease disappeared on December 26th as a massive shift of tectonic plates off of Java sent a wall of water that swallowed coastlines for thousands of miles, engulfing rich and poor: Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. - kenro izu, borobudur, java Kenro Izu's palladium photograph of Java is timeless. The landscape stripped of living human presence. Java as a museum - ancient, yet yielding to the forces of wind, rain, and time....

A foreign boy is carried by a Thai rescue worker after being evacuated from a nearby island resort off Krabi, southern Thailand. (Roslan Rahman AFP/Getty Images) tsunami help chiang mai disaster relief info sumankumar.com bbc how to send help red cross disaster relief - via amazon jeff ooi- malaysia unicef  

gregg i should write an official letter of thanks for your blog because (of) the good news! ... I can't thank you enough for your efforts! We won! If it was not for people like you who wrote letters I am sure this change would not have occurred. Thanks Emily

"Everyone has their Vietnam. Everyone has their war. May we embark together on a pilgrimage of ending these wars and truly living peace." -Claude Anshin Thomas, "At Hell's Gate" gregg chadwick the 49th day 38"x38" oil on linen 2004 collection of bill badalato Listening to Bono and Pavarotti sing "Miss Sarajevo" as I stretch new canvases for the upcoming year. The fresh smell of new linen mixes in the room with the fragrance of a just pulled espresso. The light this morning is crisp and warm. My world seems to be at peace until a line from the song slips into my mind :"Is there a time for keeping your head down, for getting on with your day?" I can picture Sarajevo in black snow. One by one, men, women and children race across a broad street. I can hear the crack of a sniper's rifle in my mind... That imagined gunshot haunts me. A taunting reply to my question "How does one paint peace?" I pick up Claude Ans...

"Our task now is to mend our broken world... And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies" -Karen Armstrong, "The Spiral Staircase" gregg chadwick a balance of shadows 72"x96" oil on linen 2004

I wish to provide you with the following official statement regarding the upcoming exhibition by Emily Jacir:       "Wichita State University is aware of the discussion generated by the scheduled exhibition of work by artist Emily Jacir at the Ulrich Museum of Art.  The University is committed to going forward with the exhibition without conditions or limitations that could be considered to compromise the integrity of Ms. Jacir's work as an artist.  The University appreciates the widespread interest in the artist and the exhibition." You are welcome to forward this e-mail as appropriate. Thank you, Elizabeth King Vice President for University Advancement Wichita State University --- more detailed information can be found at: newsgrist from the floor deep appreciation to newsgrist, from the floor, kevin mullins, elizabeth king, david butler and deborah gordon for helping this important exhibition proceed as planned...

emily jacir from "where we come from" At times the subtext of events and images from Palestine to San Francisco to Berlin helps illumine an artwork, its inspiration and possibly its meaning. Emily Jacir's recent project "Where We Come From" is concerned with the ideas of memory and exile. As a Palestinian-American, Emily is able to travel in a comparatively free manner across and through the Palestinian-Israeli borderlands using her US passport as a sort of get out of jail free card. With this ability Emily was able to create an art project in which she asked exiled Palestinians: “If I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Many of the requests would be considered simple, almost banal, if they were not impossible for the exiles to fulfill: “Go to my mother’s grave in Jerusalem on her birthday and put flowers and pray.” “Drink the water in my parents’ village.” Emily journeyed with US passport and cameras in hand in an attempt...

----- Forwarded message from emily jacir ----- Dear all, I was slated to have a one person show at the Ulrich Museum in Wichita, Kansas in January 26th. The piece was Where We Come From which was included by Dan Cameron on the 8th Istanbul Biennale "Poetic Justice", and a small excerpt of it was also included in this years Whitney Bienniel. This show has been planned for over a year, much to my horror two days ago I was told that the The Jewish Federation of Kansas has put pressure on the University and the Museum so that they have been granted permission to place brochures and a sign in the gallery expressing their views concerning the politics of the Middle East. Actually, the University and Museum have no idea what text is contained in the brochures and what the posters are but have given them permission nonetheless. This is a complete infringement on my right to free speech, not to mention an insult to me as an artist. It is intolerable that I have to go...

"where we come from" at debs & co. ulrich museum newsgrist adbusters contemporary the thing: look for arts intolerence, emily jacir thread in undercurrents

by Gregg Chadwick alan caudillo photo by Gregg Chadwick the witty, important film "a day without a mexican" is now available on dvd. alan caudillo was the director of photography on the film and i recently had the chance to spend an afternoon at the norton simon museum in pasadena with alan. our conversations centered around the place of light in film and painting. alan- " the light one finds in vermeer and other painters of the dutch school is always in my mind when i begin to plan the overall look of a film. on one level the light flooding in from a side window as one finds in vermeer or in this gabriel metsu unifies the scene. everything in the frame looks good. the shadow areas are rich and vibrant and the light is almost spiritual. on a more technical level as the actors move through a scene, when lit in this vermeer-like light, whether they are in shadow or moving in light they are readable through the lens. there are no bad moments in this kind of light...

vincent van gogh postman 21"x15" oil on canvas 1889 the barnes collection Montgomery County Judge Stanley Ott has issued a ruling today that opens the way for the Barnes Collection to move from its hard to access Lower Merion site to downtown Philadelphia. Judge Ott in his statement wrote that there was "no viable alternative" to save the foundation from financial collapse. Albert Barnes in his will instructed that the collection never be moved. His will also limited photographic reproduction of the paintings and forbade artworks to travel on loan. For many years art scholars and artists were forced to rely on black and white photos of the work. These restrictions have been lifted at least partially in recent years. Could this be the end of an era as the Barnes Collection moves into the 21st century? Or is this the start of something new and important for the city of Philadelphia? More to follow...

the world is a lesser place w/o you...

Henry David Thoreau was inspired to write “Civil Disobedience” after a night in a Concord, Massachusetts jail for refusing to pay a tax in support of the Mexican-American War. A new book takes its title from this essay which also inspired Martin Luther King's, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". "A corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peacea...

gregg chadwick a theater of time 72"x56" oil on linen 2004 in park city, utah for the opening weekend of the julie nester gallery. nice group show including "a theater of time" and also the work of kirsten stolle and marshall crossman among others. Julie Nester Gallery opens in Park City Park Record Contemporary art finds a home off Main Street By Casey R. Basden Tucked behind Windy Ridge restaurant sits Julie Nester Gallery a former warehouse turned contemporary exhibition space that features the work of emerging Bay Area artists, among others. The walls are crisp white, the track lighting is modern and the concrete floor is stained to perfection. The floor space is bare, but the walls tell the story of artists such as Gary Denmark, Marshall Crossman, Michael Pauker, Kirsten Stolle and Gregg Chadwick. What was once a "mess" has turned into Park City's newest gallery off Main Street. Julie Nester, art consultant and owner of Juli...

"Tucked inside Congress' new blueprint for U.S. intelligence spending is a highly classified and expensive spy program that drew exceptional criticism from leading Democrats. In an unusually public rebuke of a secret government project, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, complained Wednesday that the program was ``totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security.'' He called the program ``stunningly expensive.'' Rockefeller and three other Democratic senators -- Richard Durbin of Illinois, Carl Levin of Michigan and Ron Wyden of Oregon -- refused to sign the congressional compromise negotiated by others in the House and Senate that provides for future U.S. intelligence activities." -from an article by ted bridis and the associated press from the new york times, 9 dec 2004 mystery spy project and see update: mystery spy project update seems that t...

phil cousineau's new collection of poems: "the blue museum" is out. thought i would share his cinematic poem on the burning of the library in sarajevo: MEMORICIDE Black snow fell over Sarajevo, darkening the midday sky with ashes from the million and a half books burning in what was once the National library. The old librarian raced through shell-pocked streets, his face reddening from the torrid heat pouring out of the knot of smoking ruins where he had spent a lifetime rescuing words from oblivion. Defying the snipers, he stood on the steps of the smoldering building wanting to save—something, anything—even the single sheet of cindered paper that drifted towards him through the singed air, still holding fire from the inferno. He caught the paper, which glowed in his hand like a black and white negative held up to the red light inside a photographer’s darkroom. He glared at what was once a page from a holy book, an illuminated manuscript, and coul...